


carelessly growing up

by haipollai



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, M/M, Murder as a sign of love, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-17 10:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1384939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haipollai/pseuds/haipollai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky drags his nail lightly over the vein in Steve's wrist. He used to do it when Steve was small and his veins stood out big and blue against his too pale skin. Bucky's fingers are warm on his wrist and the light scratch of his nail almost tickles. </p>
<p>"Come with me?" Bucky suddenly asks, his eyes fixed on their hands. "Mission is in Belgium. Be a little like old times."</p>
            </blockquote>





	carelessly growing up

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'we intertwined' by the hush sound

Steve learned how to throw a punch so his knuckles hit hard enough to hurt, to make someone twice his size double over in pain. He learns how to breath through panic attacks until he stops getting them. When he's thirteen he meets Bucky Barnes at the group home, Bucky Barnes with his butterfly knife and crooked grin.

Steve's first kill was for Bucky. The older boy had him on his knees and Steve knew how this would go. Steve had been in Bucky's place, too small and too smart. It didn't matter if Bucky's done it before, it wasn't going to happen again. He stabbed Bucky's butterfly knife between the older boy's ribs, dug the blade in as deep as possible. Blood spurted over his hands, sticky and hot.

That night at roll call, no one could find the boy. No one thought to look in the dumpster. Bucky stood next to Steve, already up to hi shoulder despite the age difference. He trembled but said nothing. When they were finally allows to go to bed, Bucky crawled in next to him in the dark

"Thank you," he whispered against Steve's neck. It was the only time they ever talked about it. But after that Bucky looked at him different. Like he knew Steve’s secrets and treasured that.

Steve still needed Bucky to step in during fights but sometimes- sometimes Bucky would need Steve.

-

Bucky drags his nail lightly over the vein in Steve's wrist. He used to do it when Steve was small and his veins stood out big and blue against his too pale skin. Bucky's fingers are warm on his wrist and the light scratch of his nail almost tickles.

"Come with me?" Bucky suddenly asks, his eyes fixed on their hands. On the steady flow of blood through Steve's veins.

"To where?"

"Mission is in Belgium. Be a little like old times."

He wonders if SHIELD knows the full extent of Steve and Bucky's old times. If they know about the two of them parachuting in over enemy lines. About Steve with blood on his hands and Bucky with his rifle. Steve always preferred knives, guns were loud and obvious.

"We should get lunch this time." Last time there was rationing and bombs falling out of the sky.

Bucky grins and his thumb presses against Steve's pulse point. "Lunch is good. Maybe even a nice hotel and stick around for breakfast."

-

Sometimes Steve hates the uniform. He hates feeling like a symbol. A symbol is good, it gives people something to focus on but sometimes there is too much focus. Twenty four years of being overlooked and underestimated doesn’t go away overnight. Sometimes his skin itches with the need to run away.

The war was good in some ways, they didn’t always need Captain America, sometimes they only needed Steve Rogers and his newfangled strength. They needed someone who could break a guy’s jaw with a well placed backhand.

And Steve would jump at the chances to trade his red, white and blue for drab green because sometimes people had to die. To make the world better, some people had to be taken out. He learned that as a boy. Don’t stop fighting. Don’t be scared.

The world is bloody.

-

SHIELD flies them out to Paris and from there they take the train to Brussels. Bucky has his rifle hidden in a guitar case. With his messy hair and plaid button up shirts he looks like an American backpacker. He dozes on the way there, his head in Steve’s lap and Steve lets his hands drift, running through Bucky’s hair and down his side.

It’s almost summer so Bucky’s shirt is long sleeved to hide the arm but otherwise it’s thin. He can feel Bucky’s ribs under muscle and flesh. Bucky’s always been wiry but Steve can’t ever shake the fear of him being too thin. Not after finding him left behind in that stasis container, emaciated from lack of real food.

He’s done better. Steve’s made sure he’s gotten better but the fear lingers. He’s seen too many starved bodies to shake it.

“Stop counting my ribs,” Bucky mumbles, rolling onto his back on the small bench seat they’re sharing to glare up at him. It’s half hearted at best, Bucky is still drowsy.

“Not counting.” He curls his fingers loosely against Bucky’s stomach, feeling the rise and fall with each breath. “Just- Reassuring.” Bucky hesitates but then smiles slowly. Understanding. He’s seen the same things Steve has, he knows the fear that won’t let Steve go. He turns back onto his side, letting Steve touch. “So do we have a plan?”

“Mark likes to go dancing,” Bucky says, still mumbling so it sounds almost conversational. “So figure we get a good look while he’s there, then follow him back to his hotel. Make better plan when we know hotel.”

“Could take care of it in the club.” He slips his fingers under the edge of Bucky’s shirt to lightly scratch at his stomach, drawing a soft sigh from Bucky.

“Maybe. If crowded enough. Dark enough.”

“Your mission, your call,” Steve says and leans down to kiss his temple.

-

When Bucky saw him the first time after the serum, Steve thought he might start laughing. For a second he looked so crazed, like he was completely convinced he was hallucinating and was accepting it. But then Steve pressed the butterfly knife into his palm and the crazed look disappeared into one of absolute relief.

“Steve? How?” His voice was wrecked and Steve hated himself that the first thing he thought of was Bucky on his knees with his lips red and swollen and an irresistible smirk.

“You wouldn’t believe me pal, so let’s get out of here.”

Bucky stumbled the first few steps, strapped down to that table for who knows how long. He quickly got his feet underneath him and they’re jogging together, trying to outrun the building falling apart around them. Bucky’s knuckles were white around the knife.

-

It takes two tries before they find the target. The club is loud, Steve won’t be surprised if he has a headache tomorrow. For now though, for the feeling of Bucky on his arm, he’ll manage.

They separate at the bar, each taking a different side of the place and carefully circling, looking for the mark. To anyone else they hopeful only look like two guys checking out the dancers, maybe looking to cut in.

Steve sees it happen from the opposite side of the room. Bucky sees the mark dancing and for some stupid reason, moves closer instead of further away to plan and assess. The mark notices but seems too drunk to recognize him. It's sloppy, this guy must know he's a target, he can't really think he's safe here. As Steve watches, Bucky gets himself pulled onto the dance floor. His posture changes, relaxing, stumbling into the mark, letting him think he's just as drunk.

Steve makes his way through the crowd, trying to get closer. He needs to look out for Bucky. The crowd is too dense and he can't just shove them out of the way. He almost misses being small, being able to worm himself through a crowd easily.

He spots Bucky in flashes, pale skin highlighted by the flashing lights. Steve watches him move, twisting with the mark and suddenly Steve's looking directly at him.

The guy's eyes widen and maybe he's not as drunk as they thought. He twists himself and Bucky around again and Steve loses sight of them. By the time he gets to the other side of the dance floor they’re moving away, further into the club.

Steve feels his stomach twist in knots. This is wrong. Bucky wouldn’t go off script like this, not without some warning and he wouldn’t wander away with the mark.

He starts shoving to catch up with them, following them right into the bathroom. The mark has Bucky against a wall, one hand around Bucky’s metal arm, pinning it to the wall. He’s hiding Bucky with his body, anyone else might think they’re making out. Steve doesn’t care what they’re doing, instinct kicks in and he moves quickly.

Steve gets one arm around the guy’s neck, physically lifting him back and away from Bucky. The guy tries to claw at him, break Steve’s stranglehold. While he had leverage on Bucky just by his height, he can’t fight off Steve.

“You rush in here to protect me?” Bucky leans against the wall, just far enough away the guy can’t kick at him.

“Of course.” The guy goes limp but Steve doesn’t let go just yet. He doesn’t have a chance before Bucky’s moving. Steve feels the guy jerk in his arms and then finally go still. “So the plan.”

“He must have made me back on the floor. Didn’t know he’d recognize me. Come on, arm over our shoulders.”

Steve grimaces as he does as Bucky instructs, the two of them carrying the body between them. No one in the club stops them. Just in case, Steve grabs a beer left on a table and pours it over the mark’s shirt. Anyone will smell it before they ask what happened. They get him outside and Bucky leads them away from the hotel.

“There’s another hotel this way, we’ll dump him there.”

“Hotels have cameras.”

“Park?”

Steve grins down at his feet. “Dumpster?”

Bucky’s laugh catches him off guard, he almost stumbles over their dead companion’s feet. “Nostalgic, much?”

“Worked last time.”

They’ve never talked about it before, Steve doesn’t know how Bucky will react, if he’ll even remember. Bucky just laughs again.

-

Steve was given a small box when he woke up in the modern world. The few items of his that had been kept in storage on Howard Stark’s insistence. He had never had much, and some things had been donated to the Smithsonian. Inside the box was an half full notebook, some ticket stubs from when the whole team went out to the pictures and that knife, wrapped in an old t-shirt.

He never figured out if no one had bothered to unwrap the shirt, or x-ray it to figure out what was inside. No one ever asked.

He took to carrying it in one of the pouches on his belt, shoved in with energy bars. It was like the boys who wore a bullet that hit them around their neck. Good luck.

-

Bucky presses his nose against Steve’s hip, breath hot on his skin. They’re both coming down from the rush. They decided to spend their extra few days in Amsterdam, it felt too risky to stay in Brussels.

“You don’t have to, you know,” Bucky breaks the silence first, not moving from between Steve’s thighs.

“Do what?” He tugs on Bucky’s hair until he gives in and stretches out beside him.

“Run to my rescue. You always- even when it should have been the other way around.” His lips are wet on Steve’s neck, mouthing at his pulse. His fingers find their way around his wrist again, the scratch of stubble echoing the scratch of nails.

“You can’t make me stop with sex,” Steve teases, using Bucky’s hold on his wrist to push him onto his back, following him over to catch his lips in a kiss.

Bucky makes a face at him when he pulls back. “Don’t want you to stop. But just- you’re Captain America now. Not some kid-”

“Bucky.” He pulls back, sitting up on his knees to create space. Bucky doesn’t follow but he pulls his legs in slightly so one of his knees bumps against Steve’s hip. “You know what I’ve done.” His eyes dart away from Bucky, tracing the web of scars over his chest. Sometimes people have to die and Steve has used his shield for more than defense.

“I don’t judge you Steve,” Bucky murmurs. “Just saying. You don’t have to.”

“Doesn’t matter. Always will.” He wants to be the paragon of good people think he is, but that’s not their world.

Bucky nods, his fingers straying over Steve’s arm, curling around his elbow to pull him back down. “Me too.” It feels like a dirty little secret, murmured here in bed between the two of them when it’s only a fact of their lives, tied up in blood.

-

When Steve was seventeen and already planning his escape from the orphanage, Bucky slipped into his bed after hours. It had become habit, and enough other boys did the same for no one to notice or care. Bucky was already bigger than Steve despite the age difference, his shoulders were starting to broaden but his cocky grin and floppy hair hadn’t changed.

He pulled out the knife, opening it carefully under the covers. It was clean and shiny in the dirty moon light that filtered into the room.

Very carefully, he cut a line on his own palm, and then Steve’s and clasped their hands together. With his other hand, Bucky tucked the knife under Steve’s pillow. “Always gonna look out for you,” he whispered, pressing his lips against Steve’s knuckles, still bruised from a fight earlier that day.

“Me too,” Steve smiled and moved their hands so he could kiss Bucky properly, the blanket up over their heads. He could feel the handle of the knife press against his ear through the thin pillow, hard and thin like their fingers tangled together.

-

SHIELD eyes them both suspiciously when they get back to New York. Bucky explains in neat, concise words why the plan went south and what they did to save it. He chooses his words carefully so neither and both are to blame.

“You wanted him dead, he’s dead,” Bucky finishes matter of factly.

The agent officially debriefing them scowls for a moment, obviously ready to berate Bucky but Fury steps in. “Where’s the body?”

“Dumpster. Far enough away that by the time anyone thinks to look, it’ll have been hauled off.” Bucky shrugs, unconcerned. His knee bumps against Steve’s underneath the table and Steve curls his ankle around Bucky’s in response.

“You have anything to verify this?”

“Pretty sure you have the video from the club and have seen us hauling his body outside,” Bucky says. For the first time during the interview the nameless agent looks at Steve, as if shocked that Steve would be part of such a callous display.

Fury looks at him as well so Steve nods his agreement. “Check about five blocks to the east, behind some vegetarian restaurant.”

“You weren’t concerned that someone would open it up the next morning and see a dead body,” Fury says flatly.

“Rigor mortis hadn’t set in, it was surprisingly easy to just shove him in a garbage bag,” Bucky retorts, sitting up a little straighter. Steve finds his wrist and squeezes lightly.

Fury looks like he might question them more but instead nods. “Ok. Mission done then. If anything comes back to us, I’m hanging you out to dry. And you know no one’s gonna believe Captain America had anything to do with it.”

Bucky accepts the threat with a humble nod and holds himself together until they’re out of the interrogation room. In the hallway he almost doubles over with laughter, gripping Steve’s arm tightly for support. “You fuck,” he says to Steve when he can breath again, still smiling. “It was your idea and I’m the one getting threatened?”

Steve shrugs, trying to look sheepish and small. “I’d look out for you.”

His smile softens and they start walking again, shoulder to shoulder. “Yea. I know. Me too.”

 

 


End file.
